Apple ‘forcing’ Safari on XP iTunes users - ‘choice’ or click trickery?

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 22 March 2008 14:57

Opinion and Analysis

If you’ve got iTunes installed on your Windows XP computer, you’ve also got the ‘Apple Software Updater’ installed. It’s there to ensure you’re always informed of the latest iTunes update, but now it will also have Safari 3.1 ‘ticked’ by default, ready to download and install when you click the ‘install’ button. Is this right - or wrong?

For years, software companies have tried to ‘foist’ other programs onto our computers when we install their software, with the latest company to be accused of such shenanigans being Apple with their latest browser, Safari 3.1 – with the CEO of Mozilla Firefox crying foul.

The most common example today is a plethora of companies offering the ‘Google Toolbar’ as a pre-ticked option when installing software, with the Adobe Acrobat PDF reader and Real Player 11 but two companies whose software does this.

Adobe even try to offer you more of their own software, from memory a very cut-down version of a Photoshop Elements style program for managing your photo collection.

This kind of thing has been going on for years, with ‘legitimate’ additional software such as the Google Toolbar, and with ‘spyware’ as seen in many file-sharing programs over the years, with Kazaa and Bearshare being two that immediately come to mind.

Today, Microsoft with its Windows Live Messenger software, will have things like changing your default search provider and your home page set to ‘ticked’ status, meaning consumers need to read the installation process carefully to realise they need to ‘untick’ those options, lest their browsing experience changes just to suit Microsoft’s desires.

Today, Windows Live Messenger even offers to download at least half a dozen other ‘Windows Live’ programs, such as a Sign-in Assistant, Windows Live Writer, a Toolbar, a Family Safety program, a Windows Live Mail program and a Windows Photo Gallery program.

But unlike the tick boxes which are pre-ticked to change my web browser’s home page, and unlike Apple’s software updater, at least Microsoft has these programs offered with ‘no ticks’, meaning the user has to opt-in voluntarily first – although Microsoft really should be consistent in their opt-in policies.

Now Apple is targeting the largest base of Windows and iTunes users – those with Windows XP – to try and slip the Safari 3.1 browser past the user, well used to clicking ‘install’ whenever a notification of a new update is available.

Microsoft Watch’s Joe Wilcox says he was the first to write about this interesting behaviour from Apple at the Microsoft Watch website, setting off a firestorm of complainers against and defenders of Apple across the Internet.

The practice of ambush downloading has even raised the ire of Mozilla’s CEO, John Lilly, whose company makes the popular Firefox web browser.

What have Wilcox and Lilly had to say? Please read onto page 2.